Iquique City

The city of Iquique is considered one of the most beautiful in Chile, which I can partly confirm. The main street, Calle Baquedano, is already spruced up with a tram and the famous wooden sidewalks. I walked around all morning and at some point it got really hot...

Here are some impressions from the beach, where the water was ice-cold, although as a confessed lover of warm baths and warm showers, I am certainly not a benchmark here :-)

Also note the lazy seals that were seen near the harbor, basking in the sun...

I also visited a market, the largest market I have ever seen, and there were exclusively Chileans or South Americans from other nations (we Europeans cannot distinguish them, just like Africans see us whites all the same.....) At this market, there were mainly vegetables and other usual things like batteries, tools, etc... the only thing that definitely wasn't available, as you may have guessed, was "reading glasses" .... :-) and of course not forgetting "Omas Eck", along with its associated car, where you can get German cakes. "Kuchen" is by the way a word that has a fixed place in the Chilean language, it is even used in advertising. I heard it this morning during breakfast on the always present Spanish TV....

Tomorrow morning I will continue to Arica, 15 km before the Peruvian border, and then continue by car to the Altiplano....